The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you.

This thread is non-political, although you will find that most here are conservative folks. No matter what, you wont be flamed and the only dumb question is the one that isnt asked.

It is impossible to hijack the Weekly Gardening Thread ... there is no telling where it will go and that is part of the fun and interest. Jump in and join us!

Oh what a beautiful morning here in Missouri. Sunshine and moderate temperatures in the 50's this AM. Current temp is 60 degrees on the way to 64 with a low tonight of 49.

Winter whear grows at temps above 35 degrees, IIRC. Visited all the beds planted for the winter, and they are doing well.

I have the following to harvest this afternoon. Lettuce, parsley, stevia, tarragon, rosemary, and lavender. Indoors I have 9 green bell peppers ranging from pea size to ping pong size. Harvested some basil to dry, and still have plenty left.

Still enjoying fresh tomatoes and lemons from the 2012 crop. Will plant some more spinach and lettuce out doors and start some pots indoors of chives, mint, and spinach.

I noticed a day or so ago that the garlic I planted earlier in the month has started to come up. Aside from that there’s not much gardening going on at my house right now.

Work on the new sun room is progressing. The guys got about half the roof shingled yesterday before my wife noticed that the shingles they were using didn’t match what was on the rest of the house. Ooopsy...

Well, I AM enjoying the weather. Just a few days ago we were down below freezing at night, and high 30’s and 40’s, so we’re not all that cozy, but so far enjoying a mild winter. I hope it continues all winter.LOL.

Say I didn’t know that peppers were self fertilizing. Wish I had tried growing them indoors earlier. I think I’ll plant some annaheims too.

I never feel like doing anything with the garden, unless it is sunny and mild. If it is cold or cloudy, I just skulk around indoors, drink coffee, and look at seed catalogs, or read the prepper threads. LOL.

9
posted on 11/30/2012 12:37:11 PM PST
by greeneyes
(Moderation in defense of your country is NO virtue. Let Freedom Ring.)

Good news on the garlic then. Mine is up to about 5 inches. I need to get a fence around the 3 sides, but Walmart was out, so I’ll have to check around or improvise.

We got below 30 degrees a few days ago, so I threw some straw on top of the row covers, and it kinda squashed things a bit.

How often do you look at your roof? I wouldn’t care about the shingles as long as I got that sunroom done. My SIL added one to her house, and it is soooooooo awesome.

We have to get a truck for Hubby, and a storage shed to shift some stuff out of the garage. Can’t even get my car in there or anything else. It is so stuffed, can’t get to the stuff when we need it.LOL.

Also have a storage room in the basement that we want to shore up to withstand an EF4-5 tornado. Then we get a cistern or a sunroom, but the money will probably run out before then, and I don’t want any more debt.LOL.

10
posted on 11/30/2012 12:46:10 PM PST
by greeneyes
(Moderation in defense of your country is NO virtue. Let Freedom Ring.)

Still counting the days until I can start planting in the spring. I can’t remember ever getting this tense about gardening. There’s something in the air, and I don’t like it.

Finally starting to get this year’s seed catalogs! I’ve been going through last year’s over and over for no reason at all. I just needed that gardening fix.

Thought I had my garden planned out already, but the plan is changing. Last summer I made some zucchini pickle relish for my mom, she’s the only one in the family who eats pickles regularly. I’m sensitive enough to onions that I can’t even be in the same room when they’re being cut, so for the pickle recipe I used frozen pearl onions instead of fresh. Mom said she had been kind of eating around the onion and pepper peices, but a week or so ago she accidentally bit into one of those onions, and fell in love. Then earlier this week the same thing happened with one of the pepper chunks. So, now I’m making room for onions and bell peppers. I already have the pepper seeds in my stash, but I’ll be looking for some eqyptian walking onions to grow this spring.
(Mom says “After eating one of those pickled peppers, I finally understand why Peter Piper picked a peck of them!”)

Tinkering with designs for a pedal-powered garden tractor. Maybe if there’s leftover wood from building my fence I might try making a prototype.

Am roasting two big turnips fresh out of the garden; in the oven right now. Have some lettuce still hanging in there in the garden to harvest tomorrow. - Today is warmish; but we’ve had some real cold nights lately. - On another subject; herbs: I’ve heard that the herbs LOVAGE and BORAGE are good substitutes for cucumber and celery. Comments?

I don’t use coldframes, but I do cover my cabbage, broccoli and kale with plastic sheeting when we have a cold front moving through. The residual heat from the ground keeps them in good shape until the weather warms up. Lettuce seem to really like the cooler temps and grow fast.

14
posted on 11/30/2012 2:53:28 PM PST
by Sarajevo
(Don't think for a minute that this excuse for a President has America's best interest in mind.)

I have modified cold frame. When the weather is cold, and the sun is shinging, I don’t want to have to go outside to see if there is too much heat building up or something.

So I put raised beds next to a retaining wall for the back, fill milk jugs with water along the sides, and the front faces south west. Then I cover the bed with a row cover and weight it down with wood we have for the fireplace.

If needed I put anouther layer of row cover and/or straw. I only go out to harvest or take the cover off during nice sunny days with mild temps.

The row covers let in light and rain. Lazy daisy gardening.LOL.

17
posted on 11/30/2012 3:33:01 PM PST
by greeneyes
(Moderation in defense of your country is NO virtue. Let Freedom Ring.)

Well it hasn’t been confirmed yet but I just wanted to remind you how I sacrificed to help your gardens all these years in case it’s true.

Now I know that 4 inches of rain in the mid west is just a drizzle but 4 inches in 5 days in the NorthWest is a calamity and there is no doubt that the crick will rise...and rise... and rise because of our soil structure. I did wade out and pull the last of the carrots for my chief cook and bottle washer yesterday and she cooked a third of them to go with the baked Poke Spare Ribs last night with some of the tastiest smashed taters I have ever eaten. Life is good... if the crick don’t rise...

23
posted on 11/30/2012 4:52:45 PM PST
by tubebender
(Evening news is where they begin with "Good Evening," and then proceed to tell you why it isn't.)

Several are ready to harvest, others are sprouted, and others are young and tender.

I planted them at different times in order to have a little something all winter long to harvest-so I actually don’t transplant from the “cold frame”-I grow it till spring, and harvest as ready along the way.

When spring comes, I take off the row cover and keep going. Usually I have lettuce until June before the last bunch is harvested for example. This also allows me to avoid a lot of Spring planting, since it is done in the fall.

I don’t like the weather here until around June anyway, so I stay indoors till then, unless we get an unseasonablly warm day.

24
posted on 11/30/2012 4:56:46 PM PST
by greeneyes
(Moderation in defense of your country is NO virtue. Let Freedom Ring.)

Yep. Same zone as me. Started this out as an experiment 2 years ago with a 4’x4’ patch. We had home grown salad for Xmas before I ran out of everything except lettuce.

I have a lot better luck with lettuce this way than when I try to plant it in the spring anyway.

This year I have 3’x 28’ under cover, but I didn't get it planted as soon as I would have liked in the fall.

Winter wheat will grow at 35 degrees and above IIRC, and I don't remember for sure on the other stuff. But they make varieties of lettuce than are better for winter weather than others. They sometimes have names like “Arctic” somewhere on the package.

27
posted on 11/30/2012 5:32:23 PM PST
by greeneyes
(Moderation in defense of your country is NO virtue. Let Freedom Ring.)

Haven’t tried lovage yet, although I have seeds for it. Borage leaves are hairy enough I was afraid to even try eating them. The flowers are good, not sure if I’d describe them as cucumber-flavored, but they do have a refreshing taste, if you can get to them through the ants. Borage attracts ants in hoards, especially the big black ones that bite.

I only grew borage one summer. I think it’s easier to just grow the cucumbers.

I have a little cookbook I bought at an herb garden and one of the recipes I always wanted to try was for potato salad with lovage (the book is packed away in storage or I'd share the info from it). I tried googling a recipe for this just to see what I could find and I came across this article on lovage ... pretty good (with recipes, including "Warm Potato Salad With Lovage") and then I looked at the author - it's Michael Wieshan ... I think he used to do Victory Garden? Anyway, lots of good info on lovage!

This is a nice Blacktail Buck and rack for this area. I had time to take 42 photos as he courted the does that happened to be in our yard at the same time. This view is 25 feet from our bedroom and I was cautious of him charging me

32
posted on 11/30/2012 8:51:23 PM PST
by tubebender
(Evening news is where they begin with "Good Evening," and then proceed to tell you why it isn't.)

Hah. My heirloom stock seems to keep growing too. And I am trying to grow at least one of each every other year to make sure I keep a viable stash of the ones I like and that do well in our environment.

35
posted on 12/01/2012 9:10:30 AM PST
by greeneyes
(Moderation in defense of your country is NO virtue. Let Freedom Ring.)

“Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens...the most vigorous, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bonds.” - Thomas Jefferson.

36
posted on 12/01/2012 3:21:45 PM PST
by who knows what evil?
(G-d saved more animals than people on the ark...www.siameserescue.org.)

Yep, unless we have a hard freeze and then everything is toast. Last year, during a freeze, I tented plastic sheeting over my plants and put a 60W drop light under the plastic with them. It produced enough heat for the plants and most survived the short freezes we have. Cool weather plants like cabbage, kale, and broccoli will really benefit.

The technique works well for pepper plants. I have a tabasco "tree" that's 5 years old, and about 7ft tall. The young growth that is in contact with the plastic get nipped, but the rest of the plant recovers.

37
posted on 12/01/2012 7:21:18 PM PST
by Sarajevo
(Don't think for a minute that this excuse for a President has America's best interest in mind.)

The ‘weather guy’ has come out with a video .... explains the weather through mid-December (especially for the southeast); however, he makes comments about the rest of the country and you can see the warm/cold areas on the map. It’s a little technical, but he does a great job explaining. If you’re wondering why he seems to be liking cold weather in the southeast, it’s because the area where he lives doesn’t get big snow storms that often & everyone who follows him is looking for snow (he was the only one to accurately predict some big storms a few years ago). Anyway, here’s the video .... if you like ‘weather’, you might enjoy the maps/explanations:

Good Morning greeneyes. Thanks for keeping us together. I need to remove some akorns from one of my raised gardens. They are thick, so will sieve them out. Then a layer of compost and plant some carrots and other winter things. We’re going to harvest some collards from the community garden, cook and freeze some. He loves mustard greens, collards, spinach and all that stuff, cooked southern style.

Not only that, they are perinnels. I understand in Mexico they can look like trees. Interesting. This year, they are going in pots, when “cold” weather comes, I’ll put them in the garage. I have on tomato ripening. lol. Me and tomatoes, just don’t get along.

My problem with tomatoes is that they don’t ripen quick enough to eat with spring lettuce, and they are kinda finicky about cool weather and growing indoors doesn’t always work.

This summer I am going to start some in late summer/fall in pots,and bring in the pots after they have tomatoes started and about the size of a marble, see how that works.

Still eating on the fall harvest of ripened tomatoes and enjoying everyone, but going to have to make a salsa or something soon. Maybe I’ll make some juice or ketchup just to see how my recipes I collected would taste.

49
posted on 12/05/2012 12:14:43 PM PST
by greeneyes
(Moderation in defense of your country is NO virtue. Let Freedom Ring.)

Disclaimer:
Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual
posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its
management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the
exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.